The clothing and fashion industry has traditionally depended on a business model where customers purchase goods from physical retail locations. These goods are often discarded by the customer while the item remains in good condition or even excellent condition. Numerous retail locations are necessary to attract customers and provide sufficient space for the display of items and to stock items of different styles, sizes, etc. These physical retail locations are operated by teams of employees and are both labor-intensive and expensive to maintain. Additionally, each physical location can only attract consumers within a narrow geographic area. It is also expensive and difficult to adapt multiple retail locations to rapidly-changing trends.
Although many industries have successfully migrated to Internet-connected platforms, the clothing industry largely remains dependent on physical retail stores and traditional business models. Even when a sale of clothing is performed over the Internet, the item may still be used infrequently by a single consumer before being discarded. Thus, the fashion and clothing industry also produces a significant amount of waste. Accordingly, there is a need to transition to more efficient practices.
Various challenges face retailers seeking to transition to alternate strategies that provide items for short-term or temporary use. One such challenge lies in inspecting inbound articles that are received from a customer or from a supplier. Current rental services do not typically perform a detailed inspection on articles that are received by customers. Rather, these rental services rely upon customers to detect and report items that are damaged or otherwise unsatisfactory. This can result in various problems, including inaccurate tracking of item condition, inaccurate reporting of items as damaged, and inconsistent reporting standards. Additionally, relying upon customers to report damaged or unsatisfactory items can result in a poor customer experience, as the customer receiving the unsatisfactory item must take action to report the item and wait for replacement of the item.
Additional challenges face retailers seeking to transition to alternate strategies that provide items for short-term or temporary use, especially when the items may require frequent inspection for quality. One such challenge lies in managing inbound articles for inspection, performing the inspection in an objective and controllable manner, and accumulating useful data based on the result of each inspection. Present systems are not equipped to provide objective inspection standards, particularly when items are inspected in multiple categories, or when the items are inspected in different areas with differing inspection standards.
There is a need for systems and methods to provide a repeatable, objective standard for inspecting an article, and to record the result of the inspection in an accurate and repeatable manner. Such needs are particularly felt when articles include multiple inspection areas and the articles differ from each other. Thus, the present disclosure is directed to inspecting an article, more particularly, to systems and methods for detecting defects in articles.